Court will decide if Trump has presidential immunity against E. Jean Carroll's 2019 damage claims

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: ABC News

October 23, 2023, 3:49 PM


A three-judge panel will consider whether former President Donald Trump can claim presidential immunity against damages sought by the writer E. Jean Carroll for remarks he made about her in 2019.

Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, sued Trump in November 2019 over comments he made shortly after Carroll publicly accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. In statements Trump made denying the accusation, Trump said Carroll was "not my type" and suggested she fabricated her accusation for ulterior and improper purposes, including to increase sales of her then-forthcoming book.

In a hearing Monday, the three-judge panel from the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asked Trump's attorneys why Trump did not raise a presidential immunity defense earlier in the case. "Why not?" Judge Maria Kahn asked during oral argument. An attorney for Trump, Michael Madaio, argued the judiciary cannot foreclose the possibility the former president would want to defend himself by invoking an immunity defense. Otherwise, Madaio said, "separation of powers would be weakened."

An attorney for Carroll, Joshua Matz, called that argument "hokum" and pointed out how Trump had ample time to raise presidential immunity but instead invoked other defenses. "A party who believes they are hanging onto immunity does not behave the way it behaved," Matz said.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-seek-presidential-immunity-jean-carrolls-2019-damage/story?id=104220717

[getagrip_already]

1. The only immunity he appears to have.....

Is an inherent immunity to making an incoherent claim in his defense.

Being a federal officer doesn't protect you from charges when you callously smear someone's reputation after you rape them.

Sorry, that has nothing to do with the duties of office.

Now run along and change your diaper.

[ananda]

2. Do these lawyers actually hear themselves?

I never heard so much utter BS.

[Oopsie Daisy]

19. I know! Right? I think these arguments are to make his ignorant base believe that they're doing something.

[JohnSJ]

3. He wasn't even president then.

[gab13by13]

8. Yes he was,

this is actually Carroll's first lawsuit. Merrick Garland was defending Trump (the office) because, I guess he believed that defaming someone was an official duty of the president.

Garland later dropped his defense.

[JohnSJ]

11. It occurred in 1996

[slightlv]

4. I thought this was already adjudicated

before the case went to trial. Or, I guess, maybe that's another case I'm thinking of? He's crimed so much, it's hard to keep track of what's what and where.

BTW... how can you plead presidential immunity when you commited the crime prior to becoming president?! And since when has raped fallen under the "official duties" of the president? ARGH!

*rump is just throwing stuff out there to delay the courts, and see if anything sticks to a wall someplace. Grow up and take your medicine like a man!

[BigmanPigman]

5. Delay Delay Delay are the only words tRump knows.

[brooklynite]

6. I thought this had already been resolved...since Trump made additional comments after leaving office.

[gab13by13]

9. The first case was never resolved,

because the issue of Trump claiming he had immunity because he was president was not resolved.

[brooklynite]

10. I recall Carroll amending the complaint in the first suit after the second was adjudicated....

...to reflect further Trump comments after his term.

[onenote]

7. The appeal is being heard by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, not the First Circuit

Pretty basic fact for the author of the article to get wrong.

The three judges hearing the case are a Biden appointee, an Obama appointee, and a Clinton appointee.

[SouthernDem4ever]

12. Do they have to take a case that stupid?

or is it not up to them.

[onenote]

13. It would be unusual to dismiss an appeal without briefing and oral argument

This appeal has been briefed and now has been argued. The judges will now weigh the arguments and issue a decision. It often takes months from the oral argument until the decision is issued in many circuits, but the second circuit generally is pretty quick.

[SouthernDem4ever]

17. Thanks for the info

[cstanleytech]

14. I think that is a stretch for Presidential immunity but that's just my opinion.

[ificandream]

15. The judges should throw this argument out on its ear

The rape of E. Jean Carroll happened years before he became president. What it appears he's trying to do is to extend presidential immunity to his entire life. I doubt Aileen Cannon would even fall for that (though I wouldn't want to bet on it).

[bobby202]

16. Still a damn rapist with small fingers ! -

herd toad stools is a fungus ???

[Novara]

18. Hasn't this already been decided? Like, more than once?

[mpcamb]

20. Apply interest to the $5 mil. Inflate it for the 7 trillion deficit he caused.